


The Conditions You Have To Endure

by Roxie Ann (pluvial_poetry)



Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvial_poetry/pseuds/Roxie%20Ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The little details are what makes the lie believable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Conditions You Have To Endure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delle/gifts).



> Innumerable thanks to Steph (iamtheenemy) for the gentle and oh so necessary beta.

 

 

_Learn to adjust yourself to the conditions you have to endure, but make a point of trying to alter or correct conditions so that they are most favorable to you._

William Frederick Book

 

 

 

 

 

I.

Nikita was told, as every new operative in Section was, that there was one thing that she would need to bear in mind during the prep time before a deep cover mission. She was told about the adjustment period. Those first few days when your reaction time responding to an unfamiliar name is a fraction slower than it should be. Those moments when you reach for the red wine and seconds later remember that your cover only drinks white. The little details are what makes the lie believable. And they're what will damn you. So you adjust to your new life and you adjust quickly. Or you've failed before you've begun. Madeline delivered this speech to Nikita, as though Nikita cared - as though she was one of them.

Madeline told her that Section's best were those who wouldn't need much of an adjustment period during the mission. She told Nikita that in his prime, Michael wouldn't need one at all.

 

II.

Michael didn't think of her often. Michael Durand wouldn't. It was a little detail and necessary. This was his life now.

He lived with his son on a secluded street in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district. They owned a beige house with a small yard where Adam could run around, kick a football. Familiar enough surroundings that perhaps Adam wouldn't remember ever having lived elsewhere. It was important to make things as uncomplicated for him as possible. Adam had to be able to adjust to their new life, quickly. These were details that Michael had carefully considered before going off-radar. Where and how they would live. Without Section.

That had been years ago. He and his son had been living successfully as the Durands for some time. If anyone was still searching for Michael Samuelle, he didn't know of it. If he was protected, he didn't know that either. This cover, the Durands, was his only sure safety net and Michael protected it as best he could.

 

I.

The probation period for new operatives is short. If they aren't able to handle the job, then they'll die. This was Nikita's only trial deep cover. If this worked, then there would be another, on a live mission.

She was stationed in a hotel room in Venice, posing as a woman named Claire Marelli, a drug dealer with vague connections to a small arms supplier in the city. She and Michael would spend three days living as Claire and her bodyguard. If no one questioned her identity, then she passed an important test. If Nikita wanted to survive, then she would make sure that no one questioned her.

It was Michael who presented that speech. And it was Michael who quizzed her on Claire's birthday, favorite color, shoe size, her teachers in school. Nikita answered promptly, bored. It was easy for her. As much as she hated each moment, she assumed Claire's life effortlessly, even remembering to use her left hand instead of her right. She was a natural.

And once Nikita accepted the fact that this was her life now, a part of Section One, she would be a great asset to them. And she would adjust, soon enough. He told Nikita this after the trial mission was completed, on the way back to Section. She told Michael that she would never be like him.

 

II.

He was Michael Durand. He could catalogue the characteristics that made up this man in a heartbeat. It wasn't memory. It was life. Survival. Essential that Michael keep himself separate from the man he used to be.

Michael Durand laughed more. He worked in finance, mostly overseas banking, and he was proud of his work. He was proud of his son. He went to Adam's matches and made polite conversation with the other parents sitting in the stands. He had definitive opinions on politics and movies and sports. He bought groceries, played the cello, paid bills, and read books. These were the basic details of a solid cover.

So he didn't think about her. When Michael turned on the news at night, and listened to reports on incidents Darfur, North Korea and Iraq, he wouldn't wonder if she was there. If she was even alive.

He couldn't break cover. Because if and when he did, he didn't know that he would be able to regain it. Adam still needed this life. It wasn't the right time. Not yet. Michael knew that.

Until he turned a corner outside of a cafe in Berlin. And there she was.

 

I.

They spent four weeks posing as a married couple during the Armel mission. The cover wasn't hard to assume. They were convincing as two people in love. And being free to wake up next to Nikita, to run a hand over her hair and down her back - Michael had almost convinced himself. He told her that he loved her every day for four weeks. She always smiled and told him that she loved him too.

Nikita didn't disengage easily when the mission was over. She had adjusted well to being in love. No matter what Michael said, no matter what she knew - it had felt real. She couldn't forget that. For Michael, there was no other option. He had to forget. And Nikita would just have to adjust to reality.

 

II.

For a split second, he thought he might be mistaken. It wasn't Nikita. Not here, not now.

But it was. The same as when he had last seen her. Even with the dark sunglasses and the large brimmed hat, the hair falling across her face. It was her. He hadn't forgotten her face.

It was another moment like Lyon, when she had stepped out of the smoke and met his eyes. Saved his life. They looked at each other now, a chance meeting on a street corner miles and miles away from Section.

One of Nikita's operatives spoke to her, from his position just behind her. She half-turned to answer him. When she turned back a moment later, Michael wouldn't be there in front of her.

Almost as if he hadn't been there at all.

 

I.

Michael's time with Elena had been a life as much as it had been a mission. He'd been happy there, a husband and a father. He'd kept it separate from Section, from Nikita, as much as he could. Until the day came when the mission had to be completed. And then that life had ended.

Nikita couldn't understand that.

When Nikita asked Michael how he had done it, how he had _lived_ a lie, he told her to detach. Everything that wasn't necessary to the cover would be pushed aside until you needed it again. The only way to accept your new life was if you didn't miss the old one. She told him that she couldn't do that. She couldn't seal off parts of her emotions like a condemned house. He told her that she would do what she had to do. She would adjust.

 

II.

Michael had broken cover in thought, if not yet in action. He knew it was potentially dangerous. There was Adam, and their home in Berlin to think of. To protect. But Michael couldn't be Michael Durand anymore. A man who didn't know Nikita. He could no longer compartmentalize the part of him that loved her, as though it didn`t exist. It was a detail that he had no control over now. Michael would wonder where she was, if she was safe. When they would see each other again. He would think about her. It was a part of him.

He didn't miss Section or the man he had been when he was an operative. He wasn't Michael Samuelle now, anymore than he had ever been Michael Durand.

He did miss Nikita. He would wait as long as he had to, until it was safe, until they could be together.

Michael wouldn't adjust to life without her.

 

 

 

 

 

END

 


End file.
